Model With Vitiligo Responds to Makeup Artists Who Paint Their Faces to Look Like Hers

Winnie Harlow, formerly known as Chantelle Young-Brown, has paved the way in the modeling industry for women who do not have the stereotypical model look. Harlow was diagnosed with vitiligo, a disease that results in white patches on the skin, when she was 4. Since then, she's competed on America's Next Top Model, landed major ad campaigns with Diesel and Desigual, and amassed a huge social following.

Advertisement - Continue Reading Below

Some of those followers have gone as far as to pay tribute to the model by replicating the pigment patterns found on her skin through the use of makeup and posted the photos on Instagram.

However, others were not pleased by the "tribute" and instead interpreted the makeup looks as a form of blackface. Harlow took to her Instagram three times to respond to the controversy, which she argues is an act of love rather than a hate crime:

In her last post on the matter, she says, "The point here is Not to make it seem that Blackface is okay, or act like our people haven't gone through hell and back to then have things from our culture be stolen. #BlackLivesMatter This is Very true. But This situation has nothing to do with blacks or whites. All races have recreated the pattern of my skin and when they did it, it was complimented and glorified... So while a Lot of things in this world are wrong (and No I don't support 'Blackface'), a lot of things, including many intentions, are pure. Use common sense (and the definition...) to know the difference of appreciation and appropriation."